Interesting Battery Technology

Interesting in how quickly it can be charged. No idea how MUCH charge it can hold in a standard amount. Also given that things like electric cars are done with the idea of being “Green” but involve very nasty mining of heavy metals, a pure carbon capacitor is very interesting.

2 Responses to Interesting Battery Technology

The problem is its a capacitor not a battery. Capacitors store energy in the form of electrostatic charge, the size of the capacitor in Farads determines the total electrostatic charge they can hold. Super capacitors are measured in many Farads to 10s of Farads giving them great charge storage capacity. There are useful advantages but one that is a liability is, the voltage diminishes over time, that is if you charge it to 10V after one time constant there will be 33% of the voltage left, after two time constants 10.9% and so on down. Batteries convert stored electrochemical energy to
usable power and charging them converts the chemistry back to stored electrochemical energy, a very different process.

In the end it comes down to how much potential energy you can store in whatever form
and convert back to work (power).

Since there no electro-chemical process they charge fast unlike batteries. This makes them useful when the available energy is short lived but large like stopping a car.

The super capacitor has already had a huge effect in portable electronics but the film
has suggested that they can make inexpensive super-super capacitors and that has value. That value is you can make them smaller and cheaper you can use a lot of them.
With modern electronics to control the process of using that energy it gets more practical. Its the intersection of technologies that really pays big.